This invention pertains generally to antiaircraft fire control methods and particularly to methods of such type wherein projectiles are shot from artillery pieces at a high rate of fire.
Many types of antiaircraft weapon systems utilize automatic guns which are capable of such a high rate of fire that the barrels of such guns cannot long withstand the cumulative effects of heating during continuous fire. To reduce heating effects to tolerable levels, it is, therefore, standard operating procedure to fire automatic guns in bursts so that advantage may be taken of the high rates of fire possible with such guns without overheating the gun barrels.
When the rate of fire in a burst is high enough, the individual rounds may be considered to correspond with fragments of an explosive shell detonated at an aiming point at a given range. That is to say, if the individual rounds in a burst follow one another with such rapidity that no significant movement of an aircraft may occur during the burst, the individual rounds in a burst from an automatic gun may be considered to be randomly distributed about a centroid in the same way as fragments of an explosive shell are. Similarly, if a plurality of bursts, i.e. a "string" of bursts, is fired toward closely grouped aiming points, the centroid of the centroids of the individual strings may be considered to correspond with the centroid of the fragments of an explosive shell.